The Distance Between Urgency and Importance: Why Strategy Is Getting Harder for Listed Boards
The shift toward shorter horizons
Public company boards today operate in an environment where governance requirements, reporting obligations, investor scrutiny and risk oversight have expanded steadily.
William Hague’s recent reflections in The Times describe how the UK’s five-year fiscal cycles unintentionally narrow the horizon of political decision-making. While his focus is on government, the underlying pattern is familiar in boardrooms across the UK, the Netherlands and the US. Systems structured around short horizons and frequent scrutiny, political or organisational, tend to favour decisions that are easily justified in the near term, even when the issues at stake demand a longer view.
A recent study found that 53% of directors say their board pack has increased in length, and more than half now exceed 200 pages. Some reach 1,000 pages. This volume alone shapes how much time boards can allocate to forward-looking discussion. Indeed, we often hear from directors that their time commitment to boards is increasing, with more time required for meeting preparation and governance review.
These responsibilities are essential. Yet as Hague observes of Westminster, when scrutiny intensifies and cycles shorten, the room for long-range thinking begins to contract. Similarly, recent debates on quarterly earnings guidance in the US highlight how short-term reporting cycles can unintentionally narrow the horizon of corporate decision-making.
How governance pressures shape behaviour
In our conversations with Chairs, CEOs and non-executive directors, a consistent picture emerges. As governance obligations expand, driven by regulatory compliance, ESG disclosure mandates and proxy season demands, the balance of board discussion shifts. Items that must be addressed occupy a growing share of time, while the issues that should be explored to guide long-term direction risk being compressed or postponed.
The behavioural implications are subtle but important. Boards increasingly reach for options that reassure investors in the short term. The recent trend of returning former CEOs, not as part of an intended succession plan but to steady the organisation, reflects this. So does the increasing prevalence of board members stepping temporarily into executive roles, providing reassurance now while leaving longer-term capability needs unresolved.
These decisions do not signal weak leadership. They reflect the context in which leadership must operate. As in politics, decisions that involve short-term discomfort, even when clearly right for the long term, can become harder to advance when the system rewards near-term certainty.
When risk aversion grows, strategic space contracts
The effect of this environment on strategic capacity is now widely recognised. Across all three markets in which Azura operates, board members speak of how little time is available for genuine strategic discussion. A recent global board survey found that 70 per cent of directors believe their boards do not spend enough time on long-term strategy, despite consistently ranking it as one of the board’s most valuable contributions. Likewise, only “56% of executives believe their board spends enough time on strategic issues.”
This is rarely intentional. Chairs often describe agendas that are already full before strategy is reached. Directors note that board papers have grown in length and technicality. Executives and non-executives have reflected that by the time strategic items arise, often late in the meeting, the energy required for deep consideration has diminished.
Boards are experimenting with ways to counteract this. Some begin meetings with a strategic discussion rather than ending with it, recognising that agenda design influences depth. Many hold dedicated strategy sessions outside the standard cycle to create space for reflection. Committees increasingly undertake preparatory work so that boards can focus on direction rather than process. Improving the clarity and discipline of papers is another practical adjustment that helps anchor time around what matters most.
These changes are valuable, but they also highlight a systemic issue: restoring strategic space requires deliberate protection in an environment that naturally prioritises the urgent.
The leadership responsibility that sits beneath both government and governance
Hague’s argument highlights a broader truth about leadership: decisions that are essential for long-term health are rarely the ones that feel comfortable in the moment. The UK COVID inquiry has recently reinforced this. With hindsight, it concluded that the government should have imposed its first lockdown at least a week earlier. A decision that would have been even more unpopular at the time, yet would likely have saved thousands of lives, reduced the length and severity of subsequent restrictions, and limited the longer-term damage to society and the economy.[4]
The inquiry underscores how difficult decisive action becomes when evidence is incomplete, scrutiny is intense and the immediate consequences are painful, even when the long-term risks of inaction are far greater.
The same tension appears in business. When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft, one of his earliest moves was to unwind the company’s long-standing attachment to Windows and write off its mobile ambitions, decisions that were deeply unpopular internally and painful in the short term. Yet those choices created the strategic space that ultimately transformed Microsoft into one of the world’s most valuable companies.
These examples underline a critical principle for government, boards and executives: meaningful leadership often requires taking decisions that are uncomfortable now, difficult to defend publicly and unpopular with stakeholders, but essential to safeguarding long-term resilience and organisational health. In governance, as in government, the cost of delaying a difficult decision is often higher than the cost of making it.
Towards a more sustainable model of governance and leadership
Hague’s call for longer-term fiscal forecasting is, at its heart, a call for systems to encourage leaders to look further ahead. Public company boards benefit from adopting a similar mindset – one that resists the pull of quarterly performance and actively protects space for long-term strategy. The decisions taken today, about capability, future leadership, investment priorities and organisational direction, will define the organisation well beyond the current reporting cycle.
Creating the environment for long-term stewardship is becoming one of the central responsibilities of modern governance. It requires balancing governance with strategy, managing risk without avoiding it and ensuring that space for reflection is actively protected rather than assumed.
At a time when the urgent increasingly competes with the important, boards that succeed will be those that deliberately widen their horizon and hold it open.
The Azura perspective
At Azura, our work sits at the intersection of governance, leadership and long-term organisational direction. As a boutique firm specialising in board advisory, executive and non-executive search and leadership assessment, we help Chairs, CEOs and investors create the clarity and alignment required for effective decision-making. Across the UK, the Netherlands and the US, we see how expanding governance demands and rising risk aversion can narrow strategic space. Our role is to help boards protect and widen it: strengthening succession pipelines, sharpening board–executive alignment, improving decision-making and ensuring leadership capability is equipped for the horizon ahead. Our approach blends data-informed insight, behavioural depth and international perspective to support decisions that serve not only the urgent, but the important.
About the authors
Lieke Bos leads Azura’s Board and Leadership Advisory practice, focusing on board and team effectiveness reviews, succession planning and leadership assessment globally.
Karen Fox is Partner and Board Practice Lead at Azura, with more than a decade of experience supporting organisations with Chair, Non-Executive and Trustee appointments. She advises boards on governance, effectiveness and senior leadership transitions.
Edward Nash-Steer is the Founder and CEO of Azura and has more than twenty years of industry experience. He specialises in advising Chairs and CEOs on leadership, governance and people strategy across the UK, Europe and the US.
